


Coffee Cantata

by RiseHigh



Series: Cursed Beginnings and Blessed Ends [2]
Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: About which Quill is naturally salty, As is Quill's wont, But who's also mansplaining a bit, Gen, Matteusz being a well meaning cupcake, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Reluctant Housemates, Unconventional Families, Who's concerned about the wee baby Quill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8914978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiseHigh/pseuds/RiseHigh
Summary: When the bell finally rang, Quill texted the three links to him in rapid succession.That would teach the Polish one to try to mansplain her pregnancy to her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I hate coming up with titles (as evidenced by my super lazy “Physics and Penguins” one). This is a reference to Bach’s Coffee Cantata because (1) coffee; (2) in evilqueenofgallifrey’s maths teacher fic Quill likes classical music; and (3) one segment of the cantata translates as, “If three times a day I can’t drink my little cup of coffee, then I would become so upset that I would be like a dried-up piece of roast goat.” That translation delights my soul.

Charlie was dead asleep—so much so that he did not even stir when Matteusz woke up and got dressed.  Matteusz was grateful.  He knew Charlie had been up most of the night and needed sleep.  Plus, selfishly, Matteusz needed a little of time alone to process things.  School would allow him that, so he gathered his things and headed downstairs.  He was surprised to see Miss Quill in the kitchen table. 

“Good morning,” he managed to stutter out.

She responded with her usual shrug as if it were any other morning—as if she hadn’t been at Tanya’s half the night and talking with Charlie for another portion of it.  Matteusz couldn’t hear their conversation (and actively tried to avoid eavesdropping since the issues between them were something they needed to sort) but he knew it had a lasted for a while. 

Yet, here she was at the table, dressed for work with the newspaper and cup of coffee in front of her.  He frowned at the coffee, but it changed to a slight smile when he realized that the kettle was waiting for him.  While he had missed Charlie during those six days, he had also missed this.  Quill was the opposite of warm and welcoming, but she had never made him feel uncomfortable for simply being him.

Matteusz finished fixing his tea and went to sit at the table.  When Quill didn’t push the plate of biscuits towards him, he reached for them but she pulled them further away.

“This is the part where you refill my coffee.”

“Coffee is bad for babies.”

“Human babies.”  Quill pointed at her stomach.  “Not human.”

“Did you have caffeine on your planet?”

“No, but what does…” she trailed off with a frown as she reached the conclusion he was leading her to.

“Then you don’t know what affect caffeine has on the baby.”

“Fetus,” she corrected.  “I decide what I drink.  Not you.”

Mattuesz shrugged and reached for the section of the paper she usually gave him.  Quill rolled her eyes, but shoved the plate of biscuits back towards him.  She didn’t, he noticed, drink any more of her coffee.  She didn’t go back to her newspaper either.  Instead, she studied him curiously.

“You’re dressed for school.”

“It is a Friday.”

“I assumed I would be calling you both in sick.”

“Only Charlie.  I left him a note for when he wakes up.”  She shrugged and said nothing.  “I’m surprised you’re going.”

“It is a Friday,” she echoed his words and speech pattern in a way that was simultaneously somewhat insulting a little bit endearing.

“But the baby?”

“Is still a fetus.”

“For how much longer?”

Quill looked at him curiously—almost as if this was a question she hadn’t considered.  What she asked next made him think she hadn’t actually thought about a due date before now.

“How long was I hibernating?”

“Six days.”

Matteusz watched her think for a moment.  The index finger on her right hand moved as if it were tracing numbers on the tabletop.

“Between four and five weeks,” she told him finally.  “Plenty of time for exams.”

He shook his head at that and went back to his tea.  He had another question but he was not sure if he should ask it since she already seemed to think he had overstepped with the coffee.

“What is your question?" He looked up to see her staring at him. "I know you have one.”

“Will it really eat you?”

“Seriously? That’s your question?” Quill asked with a groan.  “Don’t listen to everything the prince tells you.  He doesn’t know the first thing about the Quill.”

“But you said it was part of it.”

“It’s not…” she trailed off with exasperation.  “It’s not a mandatory thing.  The mother dies and the offspring…”

Quill trailed off again and looked distinctly uncomfortable having to discuss this with him.  Matteusz began to regret even asking.  

“Look, this isn’t a traditional Quill pregnancy,” she continued.  “This thing isn’t going to consume me.”

Matteusz ignored the consuming thing and focused on two words: _mother dies_.  “But will you die?”

“Would you like that?”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“You think I’m dangerous—a monster in favor of genocide.”

“I don’t wish you dead.  I would never.”

“That’s a shame.”  She stood up from the table.  “Living would be so much more enjoyable if I knew I was doing it to spite you in addition to Charles.”

* * *

School was not the reprieve Quill had hoped for.  Everyone was too afraid of her to ask about the scar, but the majority did not seem to understand that the pregnancy was also off limits.  These humans seemed to be under the impression that pregnancy came with a personality transplant.

“Are you pregnant, Miss?” a brunette girl in year ten asked at the start of her first lesson.

“Apply deductive reasoning, Miss Bentley.”

“But you weren’t pregnant two weeks ago,” the student behind her said.

“Given your abysmal marks, Mister Polder, I question whether you’ve ever paid enough attention to notice anything.”

Variations of the same questions, _ad nauseum_ , came with the start of each lesson.  It wasn’t limited to the students either.  The faculty seemed to think a ‘baby bump’ (to quote the one who asked about how she had been ‘ _hiding that baby bump?_ ’) made her suddenly approachable. 

The only one she didn’t mind was the administrator who came to tell her that—per orders of the now-missing Headmistress—she was entitled to 12 weeks maternity leave despite not being employed by the school for more than a few months.  Three months without students and homework was the first positive to come out of this entire pregnancy.  

It might even make the next month of gossip and questions worth it.

Maybe.

By the time fourth period rolled around, Quill was seriously considering whether to start shutting down questions by launching rubber bands at the students’ heads.  It might lead to complaints from students, but perhaps she could blame it on hormones.  ( _‘Maybe the hormones have been why she’s so moody,’ a literature teacher had suggested.  ‘Even odds that she’s just a cold bitch,’ the one from the music department had responded._ )

Thankfully, the glare is enough to prevent questions since the students are more interested in talking about the tragedy that had befallen their classmates’ parents.  Feeling charitable (and not wanting to engage), Quill allowed them to keep gossiping amongst themselves after the bell rang while she wrote equations on the board. 

“Solve it,” she said when she finished writing.

The class fell silent and she sat down with her tablet.  Quill had spent her first three lessons of the day getting caught up on the important things— _i.e._ , cats.  It was amazing how many posts one misses in a week.  But Quill had more important things to look at this period—she had to research articles to combat the Polish one’s efforts to keep coffee out of her life.

By the end of the period, Quill had found three peer-reviewed articles—one from the NHS, another from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and one from New England Journal of Medicine—that would refute his claim that she could not have coffee.    When the bell finally rang, Quill texted the three links to him in rapid succession.  

That would teach him to try to mansplain her pregnancy to her.

Quill watched him pull out the phone and look at the alert first with concern (he probably thought the prince had been texting him in a panic) and then with mild confusion.  Quill added three emoji to her message: a cup of coffee, a human baby, and what she considered to be the closest approximation of a smirking cat.  She smirked when she caught him rolling his eyes in response to that.

* * *

Mattuezs busied himself with his books until the rest of the students had filtered out.  Only then did he approach her desk.  “I take it you want me to read these?”

“What I want is for you to not tell me what I can and cannot consume.”

“And these say you can drink coffee?”

“They say the average human can consume 200mg—or two cups—of coffee a day without issue.  Some of the studies say three cups is reasonable, but others warn against three cups in the first trimester.”  Quill paused to point at her stomach before continuing, “This is clearly the equivalent of your third trimester.”

Matteusz didn’t respond other than to give her a bemused look.  Did he honestly think she would lie about something so readily verifiable?

“Read the research yourself, if you don’t believe me.”  Quill glanced at the door to ensure no one was near the classroom as she continued, “Besides, none of it is applicable because, again, I’m not human,” she said firmly.  “For example, caffeine cannot limit blood flow to a nonexistent placenta.”

This got a reaction out of him. 

“Really?” he asked and she nodded.  “But how?”

Quill rolled her eyes.  Since when was he a biologist?

“We’re done discussing my anatomy, Matteusz.”  Quill waved her hand toward the door.  “Shoo.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am fully aware that this is really a “Reluctant Housemates” fic, but from here on out, everything post-finale and Baby!Quill is going in this series because it’s more speculation and less tied to canon.


End file.
